


When Things Turn Out Bad

by InksandPens



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hopeful Ending, Mercy Killing, POV Crowley (Good Omens), it doesn't happen but it sure seems like it's going to for a hot minute, not tagging the book because this is based on a show-only event
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 13:18:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20621660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InksandPens/pseuds/InksandPens
Summary: The angel glanced at his sword, and Crowley forgot to breathe.





	When Things Turn Out Bad

**Author's Note:**

> So I was wondering how Crowley got the idea to hit the pause button on time itself, because, awesome as it was, it kinda seemed to come out of nowhere. Then this happened.

"_Come up with something!_ Or-!"

The angel glanced at his sword, and Crowley forgot to breathe. 

He'd never been faced with a celestially-armed Aziraphale before. It was a far cry different than spying him with the holy weapon from atop a wall, across a gap of garden. Then again, he'd hardly known or cared who that angel was at the time, which probably made most of the difference. 

Even without the weapon lit, something about the image now shook the demon to his core. [1] He, too, glanced at the sword. 

The devil was coming. It looked like the choirs and the hoards would get what they wanted after all. 

And what of his friend, always so concerned over what heaven thought best? Always fussing over what archangels deemed so and not so? Always maintaining belief that the host were paragons of goodness, no matter how many times they let him down?

Despite the tremors around them, the demon had never felt more still.

Aziraphale was a warrior of heaven, whatever his corporation might suggest. [2] No eras of separation from his weapon would change that. It couldn't even be compared to never forgetting how to ride a bike, because muscle memory wasn't a factor; it was part of the angel's intrinsic being. 

He would join them, then, and take up arms against the one who knew him better than any? Crowley could barely comprehend the notion, despite all the visual input supporting it.

Did he think they would take him back, if he reported his serpent slain? They wouldn't, Crowley knew it as surely as he knew hell wouldn't welcome him...

Hell...wouldn't...

Suddenly everything was much clearer. This wasn't about doing what heaven wanted at all. 

Bloody Satan himself was about to burst through the tarmac; the world was about to end whether the kid wanted it to or not, which he _didn't_ because Crowley _hadn't_ been spending the past eleven years steering him toward the dark side; and everyone with stakes in this game knew _somebody_ had cocked up the baby delivery, and decided that somebody must be _him_. [3]

And Crowley realized that, given their current circumstances, a swift death was probably the kindest favor Aziraphale could afford to grant him right now.

He didn't want this. But his brain shied harshly away from any thoughts about what awaited him Below. 

He _really_ didn't want to die. But he understood. 

He met Aziraphale's eyes. The angel wasn't done talking. He would at least hear what his friend had to say. 

"...or I'll never talk to you again."

And Crowley almost lost it right then and there because wasn't that _just like_ Aziraphale.

Part of him, underneath the fear and the confusion and the beginnings of bitter resignation, wanted to laugh, even as he felt that part cutting the rest of him to pieces. Really, even now? He sat there, stunned. What a quintessentially _Aziraphale_ way to frame things. There he was, in all his angelic glory. Heh. No pun indented. 

Crowley did his best to shove his own distress aside, because if this was the last moment he would get to appreciate his angel, he was going to make it last as long as he could.

_**Wait**_. 

* * *

[1] And no, it was completely different from the literal shaking everyone was doing thanks to the infernal earthquake. He checked.

[2] During an inebriated conversation about the pros and cons of taking one’s corporation to home office as opposed to astral-projecting, Aziraphale had confessed that he preferred the former because it kept him from having to deal with his limp. Because he had a limp, apparently. As reminiscence about the pre-Creation age was something they tended to avoid in each other’s presence, this was the first time Crowley realized that the angel had actually fought in the first celestial war. 

[3] Personally, Crowley blamed the nuns, as he had followed his instructions to the letter, thank you. Then again, maybe they’d wanted him to follow the instructions in spirit, too.

**Author's Note:**

> How much introspective conjecture can I pack into less than ten seconds of on-screen interaction?


End file.
